Workers: Florence Reece

Florence Reece (1900-1986) was a writer, musician, and poet who wrote about unions, coal miners’ rights, and her own lived experiences. Florence was a coal miner’s wife and experienced the bloody Harlan County War, which she used as inspiration for her material. She is best known for her song “Which Side Are You On”, and her poetry and labor song collection Against the Current. 

For Further Reading

• Florence Reece, "Against the Current"
• Singer Songwriters Florence Reece and Pete Seeger Discuss Writing Songs 
• Which Side Are You On?– Florence Reece’s Protest Song Became an Anthem for Many Causes 

This month we’re talking about workers: Women who fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do business today. They advocated and innovated to make the “office” – wherever it is – a more equitable place.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This month, we're talking about workers, women who
fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do
business today. They advocated and innovated to make the office
wherever it is, a more equitable place. A woman stands

(00:23):
behind a podium in a crowded auditorium. She has short, gray,
curly hair, large glasses, and wears a pink checkered top.
The hundreds of audience members are restless. Cigarette smoke hovers
above the crowd.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Expect that most of you already know.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
The woman leans into the mic and her Tennessee accent
grabs the room's attention.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm not a coal miner, as you well know, but
I'm as close as I could be not to be mine.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
My husband describes the pain the coal mining industry has
brought to her family.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
And my husband and me was in the strike in
the thirties and bloody Harlan County, and I do mean
hit his bloody too.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
How important unions are, how lives are on the line.
This tiny woman rattles with a focused anger.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So I say hang in there.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
The audience loves her. After a roar of applause, she
pauses and announces that she'd like to sing them a song.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Now, This song I composed in the thirties.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
She begins to sing. Her voice twangs like a banjo,
and after a verse, people in the audience begin to
sing along too.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Which side are you long? Which side are you loong?
Which side are you long? Which side are you long?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Today we're talking about Florence Reese, a woman who dedicated
her creative work to coal miners' rights. Florence was born
in nineteen hundred in a Tennessee coal camp. Her father
was a coal miner, and her childhood was defined by
watching him return home covered in soot after endless hours
of working in the dark. Her family noticed early that

(02:02):
Florence had a creative streak, and she was often asked
to use it. She recalled that every time an animal
died on their farm, her siblings would ask her to
write up a little song, so she did. Coal towns
like the one Florence grew up in were unincorporated communities,
which meant that there were no elected officials and no

(02:22):
independent police force. Instead, the coal companies ran everything. They
hired their own police officers to watch over the workforce
and keep the coal miners in line. They owned all
of the homes and all of the stores. They could
charge what they wanted where they wanted. Miners were at
the mercy of these companies, and their only bargaining power

(02:45):
was going on strike. In nineteen twelve, when Florence was
twelve years old, her father participated in one such strike.
As a show of support, she borrowed the tune of
the ballad lay the Lily Low and rewrote the lyrics.
She sang about the miners risking their lives miles underground.
Soon after the strike, Florence's father died in a mining accident.

(03:08):
Her mother never got a dime, not even for the funeral.
The family was plunged into darkness. But a new man
was about to come into Florence's life. When she was
fifteen years old, she met her future husband, Sam Reyese.
He was also a coal miner and Florence's mother forbade

(03:29):
the union. She didn't want Florence to deal with the
hardship of being a coal miner's wife, but Florence hopped
up on teenage love and hormones ignored the warning. Florence
and Sam crossed state lines into Kentucky, where you didn't
need a parent's permission to get married. They became husband
and wife. By nineteen thirty one, Florence and Sam had

(03:51):
settled in an eastern Kentucky coal town. The Great Depression
had rolled in. They had seven children, and the whole
town was starving. Florence saw little children with sticks for
legs and bloated bellies. Men swayed side to side in
the street from hunger. But it wasn't just the Depression
that was tearing through the town. Florence and Sam were

(04:12):
living in the midst of the Harlan County War, a
series of strikes and bloody fights between coal companies and miners.
The coal company's response to union strikes was to stick
their sheriffs and police officers on the organizers. Sam had
joined the National Miner Union as a union leader. He
had a target on his back. One quiet night, an

(04:36):
entourage of deputies rolled onto Florence's front yard, and without
any warning, they hauled Sam off to jail. Florence shook
with worry. Sam stayed in jail for only a night,
but he knew it was too dangerous for him to
stay at home, so he hid in the mountains for
a while. Florence had no idea where he was. Still,

(04:57):
the police and the sheriff came stomping around looking for Sam.
Florence thought, there's no one here but a bunch of
hungry children. But the police looked through every crevice of
her small home. In between couch cushions and ovens and cabinets.
They trampled around the backyard and ate the grapes from
Florence's garden. Florence was furious. In a fit of rage,

(05:22):
the mews returned to her. She reached back into her
memory and pulled out the melodies she had rewritten for
her father. With no paper in the house, she ripped
an old calendar off the wall, flipped it over, and
wrote the lyrics in every empty space she could find.
She recalls that she couldn't get the words out of
her fast enough. This was the birth of Which side
are you on?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
If you go to Harlan Cowndy, there is no neutrallar
you'll lay there be a union man or a thug
far d h flower. Which side are you?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
She distilled all the injustice happening to coal miners and
their families into a single tune. She thought maybe music
could help rally the worker's spirits. In that moment, Florence
officially became part of the American labor movement. The Harlan
County war raged on until nineteen thirty nine. In nineteen forty,
a young Pete Seeger came to the area to learn

(06:16):
about labor songs. He and Florence got acquainted. She taught
him which Side Are You On and several other labor
songs she'd written. In nineteen forty one, Seger re recorded
the song with the Almanac Singers for their album Talking Union.
The album was a collection of working man songs and
was so culturally significant that it was selected by the
Library of Congress and added into the National Recording Registry.

(06:40):
Which Side Are You On is the album's closing song.
The song grew in popularity and is officially known as
the anthem of the American labor Movement. What was once
a childhood song was now the heartbeat of strikers across
the country. Throughout her life, Florence continued to churn her
rage into music and poetry. She could always be found

(07:02):
talking about the unions at the front of a picket
line or in the line for the grocery store. She said,
I can't write love songs and things like that, but
I want to write for the workers, for the people
to get food and housing and medical care. That's what
I want. That's what I want to write. By the
mid nineteen seventies, Florence and Sam both knew that Sam

(07:23):
was slowly dying from black lung, a coal miner's disease
that came from years of inhaling soot. Sam died in
nineteen seventy eight. In her grief, Florence was moved to
write another collection of poems and stories, called Against the Current.
Florence and Sam were married for sixty four years. Florence

(07:44):
lived just eight years longer than Sam. She died from
a heart attack in nineteen eighty six at the age
of eighty six. Yet her legacy still reverberates in the
worker's movement. Which side or you Want has been covered
by numerous artists from Natalie Merchant to Peter Paul and Mary,
and has been translated into other languages. Florence may no

(08:05):
longer be with us, but the battle lives on.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
You can ask the scabs and the gun dogs which
signed they're wrong because they're workers too.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
All month, we're talking about workers. For more information, to
find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special
thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator.
As always, we'll be taking a break for the weekend.
Talk to you on Monday.